Heather Leasure and Lory Olson’s letters in the June 20 The Reflector attempt to paint a picture of Carolyn Long as a corrupt outsider, clearly to smear her in this campaign to unseat Jaime Herrera Beutler. Unfortunately, smear campaigns have become the norm in our society, so sad, and Trump supporters have learned from his examples that honesty is no longer a virtue. To them, it is a liability. Having verifiable facts to support their claims is no longer important or even valued — claim anything you want as often as you want and people will believe it.
Carolyn Long has been teaching students in Clark County for 22 years. She is well educated and treats people with respect (something Trumpsters don’t like). I attended one of her many town hall meetings and was impressed with her genuine interest in hearing what the people in Clark County are concerned about. Contrast that with Jaime, who has never had an open, face-to-face meeting with her constituents that I know of. I’m on Jaime’s email list and get robo-calls from her a few minutes before she holds telephone town halls which are tightly controlled and scripted. No opportunity or desire to take on difficult questions from her constituents because her screeners make sure that only questions on topics that support her agenda get through. That’s a disconnected representative in my opinion.
I saw three of the other Democratic candidates for Congress at the Democratic caucus a few months ago. While I agree with many of the issues they raise, I did not see in any of them the interest in reaching out to constituents to find out what their concerns and priorities are as I did with Carolyn Long. I also haven’t seen any other candidates (including Jaime) host so many face-to-face town hall meetings open to all people, so they can hear from the voters.
People will make up stories about people they don’t like, that’s the unfortunate way it is in America today. No one is held accountable or challenged for misinformation, few seem to care. We believe anything that supports what we want to hear and don’t care whether there is any truth in it. I hope that the hate that is escalating in Trump’s America will diminish and believe that only by electing thoughtful and respectful representatives can we turn around the downward slide of our democracy.
